Will Self

Self's mother died in 1988. He was married from 1989 to 1997 to Kate Chancellor. They have two children, a son Alexis and a daughter Madeleine. They lived together in a terraced house just off the Portobello Road. In 1997, Self married journalist Deborah Orr, with whom he has sons Ivan and Luther. In 2017, Orr and Self separated, and Self was living in a rented flat in Stockwell. Orr died on 20 October 2019.

In 2016, the British Library acquired the archive of Will Self, the collection is a hybrid archive of paper and born digital material. The Papers of Will Self are divided into two parts: family papers and personal and literary papers. The papers can be accessed through the British Library catalogue.

In the 2015 UK general election Self voted Labour in a general election for the first time since 1997. In May 2015, he wrote in The Guardian: "No, I'm no longer a socialist if to be one is to believe that a socialist utopia is attainable by some collective feat of will – but I remain a socialist, if 'socialism' is to be understood as an antipathy to vested interests and privileges neither deserved nor earned, and a strong desire for a genuinely egalitarian society." In March 2017, he wrote in the New Statesman: "Nowadays I think in terms of compassionate pragmatism: I'll leave socialism to Žižek and the other bloviators."

In July 2015 Self endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election. He said during a Channel 4 News interview that Corbyn represents a useful ideological divide within Labour, and could lead to the formation of a schism in the party.

Self is a professor of Modern Thought at Brunel University London. He was appointed in 2012 and continues to serve in this capacity.

Since 2009, Self has written two alternating fortnightly columns for the New Statesman. The Madness of Crowds explores social phenomena and group behaviour, and in Real Meals he reviews high street food outlets. For a May 2014 article in The Guardian, he wrote: "the literary novel as an art work and a narrative art form central to our culture is indeed dying before our eyes", explaining in a July 2014 article that his royalty income had decreased "dramatically" over the previous decade. The July article followed the release of a study of the earnings of British authors that was commissioned by the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society.

He has made many appearances on British television, especially as a panellist on Have I Got News for You and as a regular on Shooting Stars. Since 2008 Self has appeared five times on Question Time. He stopped appearing in Have I Got News for You, stating the show had become a pseudo-panel show. Between 2003 and 2006 he was a regular contributor to the BBC2 television series Grumpy Old Men.

He has described himself as a psychogeographer and modern flâneur and has written about walks he has taken. In December 2006, he walked 26 miles from his home in South London to Heathrow Airport. Upon arriving at Kennedy Airport he walked 20 miles from there to Manhattan. In August 2013, Self wrote of his anger following an incident in which he was stopped and questioned by police in Yorkshire while out walking with his 11-year-old son, on suspicion of being a paedophile. The police were alerted by a security guard at Bishop Burton College. He had asked the security guard for permission to cross the school grounds. In September 2018 Self was accused of "mental cruelty" by Orr in relation to their divorce, in a series of posts on Twitter.

Self has discussed his Jewish heritage and its impact on his identity. In 2006, Self 'resigned' as a Jew as a protest against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. In 2018 he stated in an interview with the BBC that he had rethought his position.

His 2002 novel Dorian, an Imitation was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and his 2012 novel Umbrella was shortlisted. His fiction is known for being satirical, grotesque, and fantastical, and is predominantly set within his home city of London. His writing often explores mental illness, drug abuse and psychiatry.

Self is a regular contributor on British television, initially as a guest on comic panel shows such as Have I Got News for You. In 2002, Self replaced Mark Lamarr on the anarchic BBC comedy panel show Shooting Stars for two series, but was himself replaced by comedian Jack Dee when the programme returned in 2008. He has since appeared on current affairs programmes such as Newsnight and Question Time. Self is contributor to the BBC Radio 4 programme A Point of View, to which he contributes radio essays delivered in his familiar "lugubrious tones". In 2013, Self was in talks to become the inaugural BBC Radio 4 Writer-in-Residence, but later backed out of the talks.

Self has stated that he has abstained from drugs, except for caffeine and nicotine, since 1998. He sent his children to private schools, owing to his children being bullied at state schools in Lambeth.

Self joined the Observer as a columnist in 1995. He gained negative publicity in 1997 when he was sent to cover the election campaign of John Major and was caught by a rival journalist using heroin on the Prime Minister's jet, and was fired as a result. At the time, he argued "I'm a hack who gets hired because I do drugs". He joined the Times as a columnist in 1997. In 1999 he left Times to join the Independent on Sunday, which he left in 2002 for the Evening Standard.

The publication of his short story collection The Quantity Theory of Insanity brought him to public attention in 1991. Self was hailed as an original new talent by Salman Rushdie, Doris Lessing, Beryl Bainbridge, A. S. Byatt, and Bill Buford. In 1993 he was nominated by Granta magazine as one of the 20 "Best Young British Novelists". Conversely, Self's second book, My Idea of Fun, was "mauled" by the critics.

After graduating from Oxford, Self worked for the Greater London Council, including a period as a road sweeper, while living in Brixton. He pursued a career as a cartoonist for the New Statesman and other publications and as a stand-up comedian. He moved to Gloucester Road around 1985. In 1986 he entered a treatment centre in Weston-super-Mare, where he claimed that his heroin addiction was cured. In 1989, "through a series of accidents", he "blagged" his way into running a small publishing company.

William Woodard Self (born 26 September 1961) is an English author, journalist, political commentator and television personality. He has written eleven novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas, and five collections of non-fiction writing.